CHAPTER VIII

What unexpectedly took place in the southern part of England, and
especially in the maritime counties, during the autumn of 1830, seemed
rather to confirm the intimations of Baron Sergius. The people in the
rural districts had become disaffected. Their discontent was generally
attributed to the abuses of the Poor Law, and to the lowness of
their wages. But the abuses of the Poor Law, though intolerable, were
generally in favour of the labourer, and though wages in some parts
were unquestionably low, it was observed that the tumultuous assemblies,
ending frequently in riot, were held in districts where this cause did
not prevail. The most fearful feature of the approaching anarchy was the
frequent acts of incendiaries. The blazing homesteads baffled the feeble
police and the helpless magistrates; and the government had reason to
believe that foreign agents were actively promoting these mysterious
crimes.

Amid partial discontent and general dejection came the crash of the
Wellington ministry, and it required all the inspiration of Zenobia
to sustain William Ferrars under the trial. But she was undaunted and
sanguine as a morning in spring. Nothing could persuade her that the
Whigs could ever form a government, and she was quite sure that the
clerks in the public offices alone could turn them out. When the Whig
government was formed, and its terrible programme announced, she laughed
it to scorn, and derided with inexhaustible merriment the idea of the
House of Commons passing a Reform Bill. She held a great assembly the
night that General Gascoyne defeated the first measure, and passed an